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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28389645">Mountain Wreath</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/JD_Centric/pseuds/%C5%BBeni'>Żeni (JD_Centric)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Hetalia - Historical Notes [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hetalia: Axis Powers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Abuse of Authority, Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - Historical, Hetalia Countries Using Human Names, Hinted Abuse of Authority, Historical Hetalia, Literature, M/M, Russian Empire, abusive tendancies, mentions of future abuse</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 14:47:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,006</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28389645</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/JD_Centric/pseuds/%C5%BBeni</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>At first, Lithuania avoided the young empire. It was easy - he'd give anything to go back to the time when he had the power to decide whether he wanted Russia's company or not.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Lithuania &amp; Russia (Hetalia), Lithuania/Russia (Hetalia)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Hetalia - Historical Notes [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2079207</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Mountain Wreath</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>The opening of the short story compilation "The Mountain Wreath", I'm not sure how long it will be so right now I won't make it a separate compilation but it will be centered around eastern European history. It's my second take on historical Hetalia, so I really hope you like it as much as the last fic c:<br/>*"The Mountain Wreath" - The Mountain Wreath is a poem written by Serbian Petar II Petrović-Njegoš. It is a modern epic written in verse as a play, thus combining three of the major modes of literary expression. It is considered a masterpiece of Serbian and Montenegrin literature. The call for national awakening and unification of Montenegrin Serb people in the struggle for freedom against the Ottoman Empire is a leading theme, similar to all Balkan literature of the time. I decided to name the whole series of stories and this in particular after this poem only because of its freedom symbology which is strong throughout the history of all of eastern Europe - Russia included. The themes in the series will be centered around such periods of history that will represent struggles for national freedom and identity.<br/> I hope you like this short, plotless as it is, drop a comment if you do or even if you don't c: Thank youu! &lt;33</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> Concerning the subject of linguistics – Lithuania had always struggled. It took him decades to master the Latin that was called the language of God and knowledge and just as much to force his tongue to work around the foreign sounds of Polish when Poland refused to speak to him in the Slavonian dialect Ukraine had taught him first. It wasn’t as though Tolys was stubborn or slow – there were, of course, subjects that he loved and found himself talented in as the centuries passed and the world changed, but languages were never part of those.</p>
<p> Standing in front of the wide wooden library section, full of heavy tomes and smaller booklets, in the home of the young Russian empire, Tolys found himself overwhelmed by fear and anxiety so great, the emotion made his hands shake and his fingers twist around the damp cloth he had to clean the dust off with. His eyes saw letters but they were foreign to him, had nothing to do with his own alphabet. It vaguely reminded him of the one Ukraine had taught him centuries ago but time had robbed him of his knowledge to comprehend and read the letters and pronounce the complicated sounds that hid behind them.</p>
<p> The palace was full of books, of letters, of documents, none of which written in Latin or using its alphabet expect for the occasional French or German the Mister spoke, fluently. So it began again, sleepless nights of reading dictionaries and training his hand to write the new letters – it was a process Lithuania had lived through, he might not have been gifted where it concerned literature but he didn’t dread the dull process of learning the language that his administration would be forced to use.</p>
<p> In the beginning, though Tolys would stay as far as he could from any of the many reads the library and many offices were full of. He’d dust the thick covers and he’d try to read the names of the books aloud, written in gold across the backs – Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Pushkin, Gogol, Istomin and Lomonosov, translations and original copies of French and British writers and classics. The letters inside were so small, the pages hundreds…As interested as Tolys sometimes was, he felt like drowning in the words every time he dared to open one of the books.</p>
<p> “I never knew you were such a passionate reader!” Someone exclaimed near him and Lithuania startled, turning around to find himself face to face with Mr Russia. Mister, of course, he called him out of courtesy and Ivan did the same since ever since Lithuania had come to live with him the young empire had treated him with respect and as fondly as he treated his other relatives and employees. It surprised Tolys greatly to be treated so dearly and respected by someone who had stripped away from him all hopes of glory and stability so instead of sucking up to him he kept a cautious distance away from Russia, hating himself for fearing the man that was barely even a teenager in terms of age compared to him.</p>
<p> “I catch you here from time to time and I’ve never said a thing,” Mr Russia continued, “I never want to disturb you. You seem so concentrated all the time, you must’ve read all of those already, that’s how you look at them!”</p>
<p> “I…no,” Lithuania denied, willing himself to relax and assuring himself that there was nothing in Russia to fear, as long as he stood out of his way.</p>
<p> “Does Mr Lithuania not like such dreary themes then? I’ve got to admit, I prefer poetry myself…”</p>
<p> He said that as though he was ashamed to admit it. Tolys himself remembered a time when men would fall in love with sonnets and fraszki more than they would with women.</p>
<p> “My Russian is too poor to understand properly the beauty of your poetry,” he admitted, shifting his gaze back to the rows of books.</p>
<p> “Nonsense! It’s been so long already, hasn’t it, since you came. You get around amazingly with the administration and you tell me you can’t read a poem in Russian!” Mr Russia laughed, his bright laughter sounding like a bell in a church on Christmas. “You ought to believe in yourself more, that’s what I’ve always been told and look at me now.”</p>
<p> “I have things to attend to, if you’ll excuse me…”</p>
<p> Tolys hated the cheerfulness that the Mister treated his situation with – though maybe it was just him carrying the burden of his slavery.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> It wasn’t as though Lithuania disliked reading, he just didn’t find the same enjoyment in it the way Poland had. Poland had liked spending his time listening to stories while Lithuania had spent his own handling armies and planning battles, working in the field with a light heart, knowing that his hands would feed his people and Feliks’, whipping everybody into shape the more he grew and the more he began to realize his responsibility.</p>
<p> In the imperial mansion, however, he began to miss the stories, the ones Poland had retold him at night before bed and the rest that they had both written. He missed the smart and biting poetry of Kochanowski, missed the love Mickiewicz had written about him with and the mythical energy Sienkiewicz had created through words. Lithuania hated himself for being dragged away to the mansion without a piece of the memories they had recreated for them.</p>
<p> “Did I insult you in any way?” Mr Russia asked him one day while Lithuania was serving him tea in his study.</p>
<p> Normally they kept their verbal exchanges to the bare minimum, one or two comments were always passed between them about the weather or current political situation, sometimes Ivan would ask him about a rumour or would tell him a funny anecdote he had heard from someone or other. But he hardly ever apologized or asked Tolys personal questions, it seemed the Mister was the kind who liked to believe others felt the way he felt or when not, he liked to assume and believe his own assumptions.</p>
<p> “I apologize if I have…” he added, watching Tolys pour the tea in the small porcelain cup.</p>
<p> “You haven’t,” Lithuania denied, looking up only for a moment to make sure Russia wasn’t joking. “Why would you?”</p>
<p> “You’ve been ignoring me lately more than usual. Before we spoke more. Is there anything you find interesting nowadays?”</p>
<p> “Interesting?”</p>
<p> “Something you’d like us to talk about? Over tea?”</p>
<p> “I don’t have the time, I’m sorry, maybe some other time…”</p>
<p> He dashed out of the office before Mister Russia could object.</p>
<p> Having Ivan reach out to him from time to time without it being necessary Tolys found odd and intimidating. He wasn’t sure why, it should’ve eased his nerves, assured him that he could have peace despite the unpleasant situation. It had been so back in the Commonwealth – he’d spend more time helping the staff of the palace than anything else, cleaned and fixed things and wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty whenever Ukraine or Latvia weren’t sure how to do something or needed help.</p>
<p> But there was never any peace at the palace now, he dreaded making a mistake in front of Ivan, hated how nervous his presence made him feel. Even animals seemed to avoid him, dogs rarely came back to him when he called them during a hunt, the cats in the palace were aware of his every movement and would hiss whenever he was in the room.</p>
<p> Lithuania hoped he would get used to it. Avoidance was key.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> Whenever Tolys wasn’t in the palace cooking and cleaning and organizing Ivan’s schedules and affairs, he worked in an office of his own outside of the palace, helping his own administration and supporting Ivan’s. For a long time, his Russian was limited to the most formal of forms and phrasing, after a while he began imitating the more common speech he’d hear on the street until he finally managed to lead his first informal conversation. But Lithuania rarely spoke, he’d much rather observe and listen.</p>
<p> It was one of those days when he had to visit his own study to finish the lot of administrational work, write a few letters here and there and send out a few replies, that he found the book. It waited for him on his desk atop the stacks of papers and envelopes. “The Overcoat” – wrote across the hard cover in golden lettering. Beside the book, Tolys found a dictionary and pencil.</p>
<p> The implication he found obvious, or rather – he disliked the invitation.</p>
<p> The next week, Lithuania returned to his small study with the book in hand. He had managed to read it halfway, the entire process slow and annoying, given how many times he had to stop and look through the dictionary. Another problem he found soon after he opened said dictionary – it was an explanatory one.</p>
<p> By the end of the week, reading had become a horrible chore and his mood wasn’t any better than that of the main character of the story.</p>
<p> When evening rolled around and just a few hours before dinnertime, Tolys gathered his things and, with the book and dictionary under his arm, he left. He braced himself as he walked out on the street and was met by the silent wrath of winter.</p>
<p> Whoever had imagined the existence of ghosts and apparitions through the ages must’ve had the cold winter winds in mind. Not as though Lithuania wasn’t used to the season but that didn’t make it pleasant.</p>
<p> He apparently wasn’t the only one counting himself unlucky to be out in such a weather – the woman that, in her hurry, slipped on the thin cover of ice beneath the snow and crashed right into him. Needless to say that once Tolys lost his own balance and slipped, he landed right into the pile of dirty snow, the books and papers flew out of his grasp and soaked up the muddy water as soon as they fell on the ground around them.</p>
<p> “Can you please watch where you’re going…!” He exclaimed, so angry that his papers were now ruined and feeling a horrible pain in his lower back and backside that he didn’t care for the Polish words and phrasing that naturally found their place in his Russian.</p>
<p> “I’m so sorry!” The woman cried, immediately scrambling to her feet to help pick up his things. “Oh, God, excuse me, sir, I’m so clumsy…!”</p>
<p> He recognized the voice as soon as he heard it, though when Tolys looked up it was a little bit harder to recognize the person behind it.</p>
<p> “Ukraine?” He gasped, hoping that he hadn’t just a fool of himself in public. That wasn’t the case, thankfully – as soon as she heard him refer to her so, Ukraine looked at him and her fear and shame quickly morphed into surprise than excitement and pleasure.</p>
<p> “Lithuania! It’s so nice to see you again! I can’t believe it…”</p>
<p> She had grown over the years, all parts of her, but despite living with her brother now, it seemed that Irina was still her humble self. She wasn’t dressed fancily and considering that until now Tolys hadn’t seen her in the palace he couldn’t be sure that she even lived there. Actually, he hadn’t seen Ukraine in person since the partition, which was now a relatively long while. All he knew was what Mister Russia would tell him from time to time.</p>
<p> “I’m so sorry I bumped into you so horribly, these must’ve been important,” Irina rambled while Tolys stood. She stopped when she picked up his book and judging by her sudden change of expression, he guessed that she had realized rather quickly that he hadn’t chosen it himself. “Oh, I didn’t know you liked such stories…Do you not have anything better to read?”</p>
<p> “It was…recommended to me,” Tolys lied.</p>
<p> “I see…<em>Evenings Near Dikanka</em> you might enjoy more.”</p>
<p> “I’m sure,” at this point he’d enjoy anything more, Lithuania guessed. “I haven’t seen you in the palace, have you just arrived? Russia would be happy to see you, should we…”</p>
<p> “Oh, no, no,” Irina interrupted him with a wave of her gloved hand, “I’m not…staying at the palace.”</p>
<p> Before Tolys could ask her to explain, Irina invited him over for tea, bashfully, as if she would rather not invite him to her temporary home.</p>
<p> Ukraine, during her visits to Moscow, lived modestly in a building she shared with a family of Ukrainian ancestry and the house’s rich owners that had begun to grow poor over the recent years. It was by no means a palace and, shockingly, her way of life seemed unchanged since their days in the commonwealth. In fact, Tolys could tell by the way she spoke of certain things that she felt even more miserable now than she had felt under Poland’s dictatorship.</p>
<p> “I haven’t seen you in years now,” he said, when Irina sat him down and began filling the teapot. “I was really surprised when Ivan told me that you don’t live with him here.”</p>
<p> “I live in Kiev,” Ukraine almost bragged, smiling widely. “I come from time to time…But I don’t enjoy it as much, anymore. And how have you been, Tolya? Have you been healthy? Has my brother been working you too hard or treating you improperly?”</p>
<p> “He…has been giving me homework. But, I suppose, things aren’t as bad as they were…”</p>
<p> “I’m glad to hear that. He hasn’t been giving you trouble, has he?”</p>
<p> Not really, Lithuania thought – talking to him from time to time could hardly be considered troubling. He could tell Irina was impatient to learn more about how her brother was doing, perhaps their meetings were rare lately and they didn’t have that much time to catch up whenever she was there. Even when they had been kids – or rather, Lithuania had been one and Ukraine a dear companion and neighbour – Irina had doted on both Ivan and Natalia. Life had treated all three of them poorly, however, and no matter how hard Tolys had tried, he hadn’t managed to unify them, unfortunately.</p>
<p> “He was very excited when you moved in with him,” Irina said, setting down his glass of tea on the table. “Our Vanya, that is. I know that…you, perhaps, weren’t able to notice it. Maybe you thought that it was inappropriate but he really…was happy to have you.”</p>
<p> “We don’t speak much with Mr Russia, if I have to be honest,” Lithuania admitted, feeling the caution with which Irina spoke. She could tell though that if it came down to it, she would side with her brother of course, and not Poland so he really didn’t want to bother explaining to her the amount of levels of wrong and the moral boundaries Ivan had shamelessly crossed when he had claimed him as his property. If Irina wanted to know more about him, she’d have to ask Ivan personally; Tolys was the least interested in discussing Russia.</p>
<p> “Make sure to remind him to act properly if he mistreats you, right,” Ukraine said, with such confidence that Tolys would never be capable of. “You see, he isn’t bad at all! He…”</p>
<p> “I know that you’ll always find a way to defend him, Ira, but…Can we not talk about Mr Russia right now?”</p>
<p> As much as she understood and wanted to consider his feelings, it seemed important to Ukraine that Lithuania understood how good her brother was.</p>
<p> “I really just want you to understand, Lithuania, that Russia isn’t bad, he’s not a bad person at all,” she insisted, her hands trembling around her cup of tea. “Please, believe me, that…he was really happy when you came.”</p>
<p> Too polite to scold her for trying to convince him in such…<em>nonsense</em>, Tolys drank his tea in silence while Irina babbled. He hadn’t expected their reunion to go such a way and especially now when he realized that even in poverty, Ukraine would keep defending her brother, her company had become much more…unpleasant.</p>
<p> He had hoped that Irina would uplift his mood like she always had done but he ended up returning to the palace feeling even more crushed. There were obviously people who loved Russia still and people that hated him – out of both categories, nobody both loved and hated him as much as Russia himself, of course.</p>
<p> All Lithuania feared was the day that Ivan became tired of him running away; that would be the day when Tolys would really begin hating him, he felt like.</p>
<p> “Did you enjoy it?” Ivan asked him, the next day when Tolys brought him back the book. “It’s a funny story, isn’t it! A lot of people had very good things to say about it…”</p>
<p> “It was easy to read, yes,” Tolys said, indulging in the obvious happiness it brought Russia that he hadn’t only done his homework by reading the story but was also talking to him, calmly.</p>
<p> “I’m so glad you think so! I’m glad you didn’t struggle much with the language, did you? See, I knew it! You’re conversational Russian has gotten so good, Mr Lithuania!”</p>
<p> One day, he’d wipe that smile off his face, even if it did seem so pure of naïve, even if Russia did appear to be nothing but honest every time he spoke to him. Until then though, Lithuania would have to learn to cope; he had done it once, with Poland, he’d do it again, and hopefully, it would be just as easy, maybe even fun.</p>
<p> “I look forward to us talking more, Mr Lithuania. It’s really a pleasure, maybe you can recommend me a book next time!”</p>
<p> “Of course,” Lithuania agreed, dryly. “What do you think of…<em>Evenings Near Dikanka</em>?”</p>
<p> Somehow, he doubted that anything to do with Russia would even be enjoyable though. Too bad Ivan had always liked proving him right – he was, after all, so happy to have Tolys there.</p>
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